Brassica bug
The brassica bug is a small, flat shield bug that is shiny dark with bright spots and a stripe. The spots can be yellow, white, red or orange. It lives on cabbage plants and their wild cousins.
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Fun facts
Its spots change colour as it grows up. Young adults have yellow spots, which later turn white or red.
The mother lays her eggs in neat little groups of about twelve, in two tidy rows like a box of sweets.
The babies change their skin five times before they are grown up.
In winter, the grown-ups sleep in fallen leaves at the edge of woods or in bushes.
Most asked questions about Brassica bug
?Is the brassica bug harmful?
Not to people. It can damage cabbage, radish and turnip plants in gardens and fields.
?What does the brassica bug eat?
It sucks juice from cabbage plants and their relatives, mostly from the flowers.
?How big is the brassica bug?
It is about half a centimetre long, a little smaller than your fingernail.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eurydema oleracea
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Pentatomidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Pentatomidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa
- Also known as
- Rape bug, Crucifer shield bug, Cabbage bug
Where the facts come from
- Eurydema oleracea (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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